Turnaround in state’s July GST collection after dull first qtr

Cuttack: Despite the intermittent lockdown and suboptimal functioning of many sectors owing to the pandemic, Odisha has witnessed a positive growth in the state’s July GST collection for the first time in the current financial year.
Sushil Kumar Lohani, commissioner of commercial tax and GST on Saturday, said, “The collection of state GST (OGST) in July 2020 increased to Rs 794.02 crore as against Rs 702.44 crore in the corresponding month last year (July 19), registering a growth rate of 13.04%.”
This comes amid the poor performance in the first quarter of 2020-21 owing to the lockdown of the state economy during the months of April to May, he added.
This turnaround in July is primarily owing to regular persuasion and facilitation by the field officers, continuous monitoring and hand holding supported by data analytics by the Commissionerate of CT & GST as well as better performance in the mining sector, he said in a communiqué to the press.
Though the trend has now been reversed with the encouraging results in July 2020, efforts are being made to continue this and also recover the shortfall of the first quarter to the extent possible in the remaining period of the financial year.
The field officers have been advised to maintain the momentum by focusing on the collection of arrear revenue under various heads of the pre-ST regime as well as ensuring compliance by the GST tax payers by filing correct and timely returns. They have also been advised to expedite the scrutiny of the past returns of taxpayers and identify incidences of tax suppression by them so that the tax due to the government could be collected, Lohani said.
“The potential sources of revenue leakages should be plugged with a special focus on the detection of tax frauds. The tax officers have been advised to complete all the adjudications in time and dispose of appeal and revision cases promptly to facilitate revenue collection,” he said.